Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will restructure its Hong Kong operations but has no plan to privatize ICBC (Asia).

Jiang Jianqing, chairman of ICBC, said the restructuring includes ICEA Finance Holdings - a Hong Kong-based brokerage 75 percent owned by ICBC, and Industrial & Commercial International Capital - a wholly owned subsidiary.

Jiang, speaking at yesterday's annual general meeting, said that the rearrangement is aimed at making the Hong Kong business stronger and reducing competition between subsidiaries.

Asked if any asset will be injected into ICBC (Asia), Jiang would not say, but he did say that ICBC doesn't plan to privatize ICBC (Asia).

He added that the enhancement of ICBC (Asia)'s wealth management and private-banking business is what the bank is looking forward to.

The speculation of ICBC (Asia)'s privatization came after CITIC International Financial Holdings (CIFH) issued a statement Wednesday saying that its parent CITIC Group will buy out and delist the division.

He said ICBC is seeking acquisition opportunities, but he didn't say whether the bank will acquire other small- to medium-sized banks in Hong Kong.

ICBC, being the world's largest bank by market value, also aims to become the most profitable.

Jiang said ICBC plans to achieve that goal in five years. "It's not because we have progressive growth," he said. "It's because our peers on Wall Street have performed badly."

The bank said in April that its first-quarter profits rose 77 percent to HK$36.7 billion. Jiang hopes that the loan growth this year can match that of last year.

Asked about the impact of Sichuan earthquake, Jiang said the impact on its loan portfolio was limited, as the loans in Sichuan province only account for 2.8 percent of the bank's loan portfolio.

(HK Edition 06/06/2008 page2)